Various types of thermal heads have been proposed to date as printing devices for use in facsimiles, video printers, and so forth. For example, there is known a thermal head comprising: a substrate; a heat generating portion disposed on the substrate; a driving IC which controls actuation of the heat generating portion; and a covering member which covers the driving IC, the covering member serving also as an ink ribbon guide, in which a recording medium is conveyed while making contact with the covering member (refer to Patent Literature 1, for example). Moreover, when the substrate is seen in a plan view, this thermal head is composed of a first region defined by extending an area where the driving IC is disposed in a sub scanning direction, and a second region being an area other than the first region.